Karei Naru Ichizoku

This is the story of Manpyou Teppei and his father, Daisuke, and their bitter falling-out in the tumultuous times of post-war Japan. Daisuke's father Keisuke went from rags to riches through his hard work in Japan's financial and steel industries immediately after the war. When Daisuke was of age, he took over the Hanshin Bank from his father Keisuke and had hoped one day that his own son, Teppei, would inherit it. However, Teppei followed in his grandfather Keisuke's footsteps, studied metallurgy, and assumed the role of CEO of Hanshin Steel.

Fast forward to the mid-1960s where our story takes place. Daisuke's Hanshin bank is ranked 10th out of Japan's 12 mega-banks. The banking industry is on the verge of collapse, however, because they cannot compete with the foreign banks. Their only hope for survival is to merge into 4 or 5 banks and to take back Japan. The problem is that nobody wants to be the one absorbed in the merger -- he wants to do the absorbing. So it is with Daisuke and 10th-ranked Hanshin Bank.

It is during this time when every spare penny counts that Teppei approaches his father Daisuke and asks for 250 billion yen (~$75 million back then). He needs the colossal funds to build Japan's 2nd blast furnace, a behemoth capable of taking iron ore and turning it into so-called "pig iron," crucial to any iron industry. Teppei says that the Manpyou iron factory (Hanshin Steel) must build its own blast furnace because Imperial Steel, Japan's richest iron enterprise, has grown fearful of the Manpyou's superior finished goods (which have attracted the eyes of big businesses) and has decided to snuff Hanshin Steel out by denying them the pig iron produced by Imperial Steel's own blast furnace, the only one currently in existence in all Japan.

Although Teppei presents his father Daisuke with the lucrative projections the devastating investment of 250 billion yen will yield, Daisuke is fearful: not of Teppei's imminent failure, but rather of Teppei's imminent success. For Daisuke sees in Teppei the reincarnation of his own father, the Manpyou clan's founder, Keisuke: the man in whose shadow Daisuke has always lived. Fearing that his own son Teppei will eclipse him, Daisuke (thru Hanshin Bank) denies Teppei (thru Hanshin Steel) the necessary funds to complete construction on the blast furnace -- and in so doing initiates the downward spiral of the Manpyou family.

Karei Naru Ichizoku, or 華麗なる一族, literally means "The One Magnificent Family". Doesn't really translate into English well (partly because it's archaic Japanese no longer in use), but it basically means "of all the families that have ever been, this is the one family that we would call 'magnificent' were we asked to do so." And I can say from having watched the first two episodes of this 10-episode television series that the show lives up to its ambitious title. Two episodes in and I am already convinced that this is one of the greatest epic sagas I have ever borne witness to; I dream of shows like this airing on American TV. In the words of LeVar Burton, "you don't have to take my word for it": check out the links below. Behold those ratings: 30% viewership for the series finale. Insane. Any of the major networks over here would spill blood for those sorts of ratings.

You wanna know what makes this story best of all? All based on a true story. Names have been changed out of respect for the families involved and because some of the story elements have been played up a bit for the sake of making good TV, but this is more or less the true story behind Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Sanyo Special Steel Co.,Ltd.

Wikipedia
DramaWiki
*note the involvement of the Philharmonic Orchestra
Karei Naru Ichizoku named Drama of the Year